The Blog

The Project

In 1890, a Russian doctor journeyed alone for three months across 6,000 miles of Siberian wilderness.

His destination: the remote Tsarist penal colony of Sakhalin Island.

His goal: to document the harrowing living conditions of the exiles and convicts incarcerated there.

That doctor was Anton Chekhov.

On his return he wrote the first of his four great plays and Sakhalin Island – a chronicle of his experiences and his largest single work. Inspired by this book,

Through a mesmerising collage of image, sound, original live music and movement, The Russian Doctor plumbs the mysteries of the island, conjuring the 10,000 inhabitants and evoking the resonances of the writer-doctor’s experiences there.

An exploration of the impossibility of escape, The Russian Doctor is a meditation on freedom.